In low income areas and particularly in rental units, leaks often develop in the ceiling and the normal remedy is for the tenant to place a pail or bowl under the leak until he can get around to fixing it himself or get the landlord to fix it. As well known by many tenants, it may take days or even weeks to get a landlord to fix anything.
While a pail or bowl works sometimes, if the leak takes the form of a crack, water can drip from spaced points greater than the diameter of the bowl or pail. If the pail is on the floor, accurate alignment is necessary and it presents an obstacle to persons in the room. If it is placed on a ladder, the ladder presents a worst obstacle. In addition, pails and/or bowls require periodic emptying and thus constant vigilance is necessary if water damage is to be avoided.
Prior art devices have been proposed for solving the foregoing problems. The closest prior art of which I am aware is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,666 issued Jan. 20, 1981 to one Norris. In this patent, a funnel shaped sheet is held up at its corners by spokes extending upwardly and outwardly from a stand. This stand is similar to a music stand in that telescoping tubes are provided so that its height may be adjusted. The idea is to position the funnel sheet beneath a leak in the ceiling. A flexible tube passes from the lowest end of the funnel to an out of the way location such as a sink so that water collected in the sheet is continuously drained.
The foregoing arrangement will work to some extent but is relatively bulky and requires assembly of the stand and other components. Further, while the feature of continuous draining is provided, the stand iself presents an obstacle in the room to persons walking about. If the leak is above furniture or a bed, the device with the stand could not in any practical sense be used. In other words, the floor area directly beneath the leak would have to be clear to support the stand.